Comments by Tom Bombadil

These are the 10 posts of 114 by Tom Bombadil.

  • When is Classical Parmaquesta?

    Well well, who knows? But anyway, thanks for clarifying.

  • When is Classical Parmaquesta?

    So, just that we're on the same page ...

    Quenya is nearly - no, actually it's exactly like English. Both languages are more conservative in writing than in speech, but not because they write a past language. In writing, they merely do two things different from their modern speech:

    First, they use ancient spelling habits, which often don't reflect the modern pronunciation (table instead of teibl, knight instead of nait, light instead of lait, ithil instead of isil, xarma instead of harma, ñoldo instead of noldo),

    and second, in regard to semantics and grammar, the language is basically on the modern level, but employs some archaisms/doesn't acknowledge new developments (whom instead of who, -ing istead of -in, prepositions instead of postpositions, accusative, cáno for herald instead of tercáno, nóre for people, etc.).

    So, for short, we write the modern language, just with some random archaisms and old-fashioned spelling conventions - and we don't write PQ as it really was, we merely take some PQ aspects into our TQ texts. It is not that there really is another language written than spoken, as in medieval England where the learned spoke English and wrote Latin,

    right?

    If that's right, and if the modern books are not written in the book-language, then, really Tolkien, why call it "book-language" in the first place? Because it was the time when the first books were written?

  • When is Classical Parmaquesta?

    Thanks from me too, the timeline helps a lot. So, I try to sum up; the written standard of Quenya in the Third Age reflects that which was spoken approximately in YT 1300 and classified as early PQ, and, in regard to the phonetical timing, I guess that would make it the language between process 10 and 11 on this timeline:

    eldamo.org,

    right?

    Or is my whole approach wrong and written Quenya doesn't exactly equal the spoken language at any time, but is instead modern TQ with slightly different spelling which retains only some morphological features from PQ (like initial X-) while ignoring others (like long final vowels)?

  • Gloss “gaer” by Eldamo Import

    So, Gaer means both too? I'm just asking because causing fear and being in fear is quite a difference to me; does one suffix (-ā) really cover both in Elvish?

    View thread

  • Gloss “gaer” by Eldamo Import

    Is that horrifying or horrified? I'd say awful rather implies the former while fearful implies the latter, but it hardly means both, does it?

    View thread

  • When is Classical Parmaquesta?

    Hi everyone,

    I would like to learn not just the modern Tarquesta vocabulary but also the Parmaquesta terms of Quenya, but I'm not shure how to define that since Parmaquesta is the language in a period of time, not a point of time.

    So, if, let's say, a learned Noldo in the Third Age were to write a text in that which they would regard to be standard Parmaquesta, would that be late or early PQ? More specifically asked, which process of the Eldamo phonetics on Quenya is the last one that should be considered when writing a Parmaquesta text?

    Thanks for your help and all the amazing work!

  • -ia and i-affection

    Thanks for your answer, delia and Gondolin have been giving me such headaches.

    View thread

  • -ia and i-affection

    On Eldamo's Sindarin Phonetics, it is assumed that CjV > CiV happened before the first stage of i-affection. Are we entirely sure this is not the other way around? I-raising is effectively the opposite of a-affection, but a-affection is hardly undone in any word that ended in -ja in Old-Sindarin.

    If the suffix was already -ia before i-raising happened, wouldn't we expect delia to be dylia (dulja > dolja > dolia > dulia > dylia), nedia- to be nydia-, and gwain to be gwîn (gwinja > gwenja > gwenia > gwinia > gwini > gwin > gwîn), and mein to be mîn, feir and fair to be fîr, dail to be dîl, etc.?

    We could assume that -ia did not instantly cause i-affection - maybe i was still too j-like, it was a gradual process after all, or maybe a-affection was still an active enough process to prevent this - but wouldn't it be less far-fetched to assume that -Cja > -Cia after the first and before the second stage of i-affection?

    For the sake of completeness, I found one counterexample, tiria- is not teria-, but that might be because it was/is tíria-, and this is the only counterexample I could find.

    View thread

  • Gloss “ostimë” by Ardalambion (Helge Fauskanger)

    Could someone please explain to me when and how this phenomenon appears? I guess that irregular nouns (like for example mar (mard-), ambar (ambart-) and elessar (elessarn-)) do/have that when they get inflected (respectively when they are not in nominative and singular).

    Even if my guess is right, there might be more situations where ostime occurs. At least Ardalambion says that it is a strengthened element "within" the stem, not only at it's end.

    So, now I have three questions.

    Firstly: Is my guess right that ostime occurs when irregular nouns become inflected?

    Secondly: Where else does it happen? "Within the stem"? How does ostime occur "within" a stem? Could you give me some examples?

    Thirdly: By the way; What is the precise definition of "element" in this case? Is it just a letter, respectively a phoneme?

    PS. What if the stem of an irregular word does not add but replace a letter? Like lunga (lungu-) or ango (angu-)? That is not ostime, is it?

  • Gloss “-(r)il” by Eldamo Import

    May that also be a Quenya suffix? At least it seems so since it appears in Tavaril as a feminine suffix.

    View thread